Monday, February 1, 2016

One cannot THINK well. LOVE well or SLEEP well unless one has DINED well

I am not sure who coined that phrase but I love it! I have set myself a challenge for the month of February- the month of love - to tell stories about the different aspects of love. Here is my first one.

My Nan Westwell (1899
– 1979) was the inspiration for my love of cooking and baking and food. Her tiny kitchen at Queen Street in St Helens, was Spartan and held a gas stove, only cold
running water, no fridge and not even a food mixer, a fork and an energetic wrist produced the same result! Yet she produced the
most amazing dishes in that kitchen. She shopped daily for the freshest of ingredients
and used Fitzpatrick’s Butchers at the meat market and Morton’s
Bakery in North Road for her daily bread her whole life. Money was hard earned and tight so she demanded the best for her shillings.

Braised pork steak and
onions with mash potato and carrots and turnips was her favourite dinner dish and she could create a feast with a pound of steak to feed an army. She doted on her grandchildren and we loved being 'only' children when we slept at her house - in her creaky double bed - and the rustling of chocolate paper in the dark was the norm as she secretly enjoyed a sweet treat. She had been hungry as a child living through two world wars.

Nan loved to bake. Savoury and fruit pies were a staple and her pastry was spoken about in reverent terms, her apple
pie was legendary – made with apples from our garden in Eccleston. The tree that they came from was grown from an apple pip by my brother and nurtured by him with the belief that one day it would be a tree. It was a bit of a family joke but still he poured his love into the care of it, and for many years was just a twig till eventually took off and shot heavenwards to produce a bounty of baking apples each September. These apples were rationed amongst the women in the family who baked and were treasured as they made the best apple pies.

A simple existence revolving around meal times and based on hard work, honest food, counting the pennies to save the pounds. Nan Westwell taught me that you
can make a feast from nothing and that LOVE is the most important ingredient
when making food.

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What I can't live without.

My Family

My Camera

Living where I can smell the sea.

Flowers,Trees, Birds and Bees

Clinique

Adventure

A good book

The G Spot explained.

If you have come here looking for thrills, ecstasy,marital advice or a geography lesson on the female anatomy - you are going to be disappointed! A while ago whilst visiting an elderly relative on a cold day and putting my hat and scarf on to leave, I remarked that I had a little place on the back of my neck that was my thermostat. If that spot was warm then so was I - she said that she was exactly the same . We called it "The G spot" because my marital surname begins with G and her first name is Gladys - she is 90 years old and I do believe that she truly believes that's what its all about. I suppose at that age it is!